


Undying

by kuroimyuutsu



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Action, Action & Romance, Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, An unfortunate roommate, Blood and Gore (duh), Breaking and Entering, Combat Miya, Eventual Romance, Hospitals, M/M, SakuAtsu, Sharpshooter Sakusa
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-14
Updated: 2021-02-16
Packaged: 2021-03-15 07:53:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,977
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29432724
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kuroimyuutsu/pseuds/kuroimyuutsu
Summary: A pandemic of the C. thralli parasite ravages the nation, killing thousands and reanimating their corpses into dangerous creatures capable of spreading the infection. S.P.I.K.E. agent Atsumu Miya isn’t fond of his new partner Kiyoomi Sakusa, a reserved, cleanliness-obsessed sharpshooter. Before long, their first mission together lands them in terrible trouble, and Sakusa’s secrets might be the only thing that can save them.
Relationships: Miya Atsumu/Sakusa Kiyoomi
Comments: 6
Kudos: 45
Collections: Haikyuu!! Apocalypse Week





	1. Chapter 1

The smell told Atsumu Miya at once that something was wrong: a familiar, sickish-sweet odor, yeasty, like baking bread. 

He had barely registered this fact, standing in the entryway, his combat gear heavy across his chest after a long day, when the Infected lurched crookedly out of the living room, groaning in that strange, plaintive way they did, and lunged for him. 

Miya caught a brief glimpse of the strips of skin peeling from its face– it must’ve turned about a week ago, judging by the state of decay– as he pulled his department-issue hunting knife from the sheath strapped to his back and buried it in the Infected’s moldering abdomen.

Its gray eyes didn’t blink when Miya twisted the blade and threw it to the ground. It tried skittering back up to its feet, and slipped on the black, dead intestines slithering out of its reamed abdomen, mouth open and sniffing blindly for Miya’s flesh. 

Miya didn’t waste time. He raised the long, curved blade high and brought it down in a swooping arc. The folded steel sliced wetly through rotting bone, and the head thudded across the warped floorboards, twitching for a few seconds more before the jaw went totally slack, and the tongue, slimy with old blood, flopped out of the side of its mouth. 

“Christ.”

Miya wiped the hunting knife on the Infected’s clothes– it had been wearing a fake Lacoste polo and khakis, poor soul– and looked around his apartment. The place was in disarray, the couch upturned, the plates shattered all along the kitchen floor. 

And then Miya’s breath hitched in his chest. 

There, in a thin, erratic trickle leading toward the far bedroom, was the bright red of fresh human blood.

“Sugiyama!” he yelled into what he could no longer hope was an empty house. 

He shut the front door and hurriedly fastened its three bolts. When his roommate didn’t answer, he walked, then ran, down the hall, his hunting knife drawn.

“Sugiyama! Ichiro, where are ya?”

And then there came a faint answer from the far bedroom, a barely perceptible whimper of pain that was nonetheless unmistakably human. 

Miya’s roommate, Ichiro Sugiyama, was kneeling on the floor of his bedroom. Blood trickled steadily from a wound on his neck– a wound with the telltale scalloped edges of human teeth. His young, round face was pale from bleeding and fear.

“I’m sorry, Miya,” whispered Sugiyama, “It got me. I burned something in the kitchen and opened the front door just for a second–”

“How long’s it been?” Miya interjected, dropping to his knees beside Sugiyama.

Without meeting Miya’s eyes, Sugiyama held up the boxy black BiteTrak on his wrist. The red numbers flashed: 3:17.

Miya cursed and sat back on his heels, his urgency gone now. He didn’t even have a dose of antidote on him, but it was almost better that way. 

Two minutes. That’s how long it took for the larvae of _C. thralli_ to enter circulation. And after that, when the BiteTrak numbers flashed red, when the parasites were swimming straight for the thalamus and amygdala of the midbrain, there wasn’t a thing anybody could do, even with the antidote in hand. 

The only way to prevent Infection now– and the only way to neutralize an Infected for that matter– was to sever the brainstem. At this point it was the most merciful, and the most practical solution.

“It’s okay, Miya,” said Sugiyama softly. 

Miya started; it’s as though the kid had read his mind. 

“You’re licensed to do it, aren’t you?” Sugiyama went on in his sincere, sensible voice, “Since you’re in S.P.I.K.E.? It’s okay. I won’t make it harder for you by telling you not to do it. I never made much of my life, anyway. It’s almost a relief. Just make it quick. I’m not scared.”

But as he said this, tears started to roll down his plump schoolboy cheeks. Yet when Miya reached for him, he shrank back.

“Hurry,” said Sugiyama, and Miya nodded. 

Usually, the seizures started no more than fifteen minutes after the bite, a process no one had ever survived to tell about, but that always looked excruciatingly painful. Cardiac arrest commenced at thirty minutes, followed by full Infection and reanimation within the hour.

Miya reached into his satchel and took out two autoinjector needles: a single intramuscular dose of midazolam, and another of fentanyl.

“I’m gonna give you the tranqs first, okay? Pick out a good dream, brother.”

Sugiyama nodded and closed his eyes. 

“Yeah. Don’t tell me when.”

“Don’t worry. Two little pokes. That’s all yer gonna feel.”

One after the other, Miya pushed the meds. When Sugiyama’s head lolled forward, Miya stood and raised the knife– at that very moment, a thought came to him that made him sick to his stomach– but he ignored it, clenched his teeth, and beheaded Ichiro Sugiyama. 

The body fell forward. Twin jets of blood flew from the two cleanly severed carotid arteries. Miya wiped away his tears impatiently and mumbled, “Couldn’t have paid the rent first, huh?” and laughed dizzily. The nausea intensified. He stepped over the spreading crimson pool to the dresser and opened the top drawer. 

As he rifled through the contents of the drawer, he pressed the talk button on the two-way radio at his hip.

“This is Agent Miya. D’ya copy?”

There was a brief run of static. Then a cool, even male voice came over the wire: “Copy. What is your status?”

“Hey, Kita. A code ten sixty-six on 45 Bleeker Street. Neutralized. And, um. A code ten-twenty.”

There was a brief pause on the other end.

“A euthanization?”

“My roommate.”

Miya at last found Sugiyama’s prescription Xanax buried under the neat rows of folded socks. He popped the top and tipped three into his mouth, then pocketed the bottle.

“Copy that,” said Kita, his tone impassive, “We’ll send Biohazard by. I’m sorry for your loss, Agent Miya. Will you need to take a personal day?”

_Christ, pull it together. Even Kita feels sorry for you._

“Nah, that’s okay. Anythin’ new for me down at headquarters?”

“Let me see. Yes, there’s a new assignment here for tomorrow. An item recovery at Shrine General Hospital. Relevant documents should be delivered to your device in a few minutes. You’ve also been assigned a new partner.”

Miya didn’t quite register the last part, because it had just occurred to him that he’d have to call Sugiyama’s parents. He scanned the room, looking for Sugiyama’s cell phone, and spotted it in the gap between the dresser and the wall. He crouched down and pushed his arm into the narrow space, groping for it.

“What’s that? New partner?” 

“Yes, Agent Miya.”

“They say who it is?”

“Your new partner will be Kiyoomi Sakusa.”

Hearing that name, Miya briefly stopped ferreting around for the phone. 

“Sakusa, huh? That the new guy? The germophobe sharpshooter?”

“I believe so, yes.”

Miya grunted. His fingers found Sugiyama’s phone. He pushed it across the floor out into the open and picked it up. 

“Sakusa, huh,” he said, more to himself than to Kita. He didn’t know much about Sakusa, other than the fact he was a little unusual. Still, in a partner, he could probably do worse in terms of odds of survival.

“You’ll have a chance to become acquainted on the car ride tomorrow. Is there anything else you need?”

“No. I’m golden.”

He hadn’t meant for that to sound sarcastic. He heard Kita sigh softly into the radio.

“Will you be okay spending the night at your apartment?”

“Yeah. Don’t worry, Kita. And thanks.”

“Of course, Agent Miya.”

The radio cut out. The blood was now seeping across the carpet in a dark, clotting mess. Another wave of sickness hit Miya then, and he barely made it to the bathroom in time to puke up the protein bar he’d had for lunch. 

When he was done, he turned the sink on, splashed water onto his face and tried to rinse the bitter non-chocolate taste out of his throat. Then he straightened up and stared at his tired, wet face reflected in the mirror. 

He had remembered the thought he’d had just before he’d euthanized Sugiyama– just before he’d put an end to every conscious perception that a human being had ever had, and would ever have again. The thought had been: _I should probably do this out back._

Precisely on time, Kiyoomi Sakusa climbed into the passenger seat, touching everything gingerly– the door handle, the dusty paneling, the seatbelt buckle– as though they were unsanitary and possibly contagious. Miya studied Sakusa as he finally sat down, produced an alcohol wipe from his pocket, and began to clean the surfaces around him.

“I’m Atsumu Miya,” he said, since Sakusa hadn’t yet glanced at him, “Pleased to meet ya.”

At last, Sakusa flicked his black, long-lashed eyes toward Miya as though noticing him for the first time. He had rich-boy good looks. At least, Miya guessed that he did. It was hard to say for sure, because his nose and mouth were covered by the trademark fitted charcoal gaiter that extended all the way down to his collarbones. The rest of Sakusa’s gear was fairly standard issue– except, of course, for the twin semiautomatic pistols sitting elegantly on each slender hip, and the neat row of spare magazines clipped to his belt. 

The fabric of the gaiter rippled subtly when Sakusa spoke.

“Kiyoomi Sakusa. Charmed.”

He talked like he was from upstate. The _nice_ upstate, the one that meant he probably didn’t like to get his hands dirty figuratively, either. Sakusa suddenly struck Miya as being ridiculous. He started the car.

“Y’know,” he said, “that mask ain’t doin’ much. Seein’ as the bugs are transmitted by blood and all.”

Miya was in a wicked mood. He hadn’t slept at all last night. The screams of Sugiyama’s mother were still ringing in his ears. 

“ _C. thralli_ isn’t a bug,” said Sakusa, “It’s a parasitic protozoan.”

Bug, protozoan, whatever. Miya already hated Sakusa’s lilting smarter-than-you tone. He’d set the over-under at five seconds for how fast Sakusa’d be out the door if the Infected had you cornered. He wrenched the car onto the road. The sky was gray, and the streets were lined by dirty piles of snow. The sight of it did nothing to help his mood. 

“What d’ya make of the assignment?” he grunted, in a final halfhearted attempt at conversation. But Sakusa only seemed irritated that he’d interrupted the silence once again. 

“It seems straightforward, doesn’t it? We enter through the window, retrieve Dr. Okada’s hard drive, and get out. It’s not exactly going to be _Left 4 Dead II_.”

Miya fell silent, glaring at the streets ahead. There had always been heaps of garbage on the sidewalks of Shrine City, but over the last three years they had expanded into unkempt mountains, spilling into the road and up the chipping walls and boarded-up windows of the abandoned buildings. A few stray Infected ambled crookedly past in varying states of decay. They turned their sagging heads as Miya drove past, attracted to the warmth and scent. But soon after, they returned to their shuffling, aimless pilgrimage.

He mentally reviewed the documents he’d received last night. It was an unusual assignment. Shrine General had gone on lockdown a week ago, and as of two days prior, was now considered overrun. A last, desperate transmission had come over the emergency line just before the comms went dead; a pediatrician and researcher named Dr. Kai Okada had shouted something incomprehensible except for a single phrase: “...found a cure.”

A cure. Not _antidote,_ which could prevent Infection only if given within two minutes. But a _cure._ If Okada had been speaking accurately in his last moments– and they had every reason to think a man like Okada would have been– and had really meant a _cure,_ something that could kill _C. thralli_ once it assumed its bradyzoite form seated in the host’s midbrain, controlling every movement with its long, branching pseudonerves– then the pandemic could even be stalled, or even reversed. 

No one knew how far Okada had actually gotten, or whether he’d even tested the cure in animal subjects. Even so, the prospect had been enticing enough to the CDC that they’d made the request to the Shrine City S.P.I.K.E. tactical unit to recover whatever data they could find in Okada’s office...

In spite of himself, Miya’s thoughts drifted back to Sugiyama. In any war there were those who died the day before the armistice was declared. If he could have waited just a little longer before leaving that front door open– if his luck had just been a little bit better– well, that was assuming the cure would work, anyway.

Poor kid. They hadn’t actually become close friends in the year they’d lived together, but Sugiyama had been quiet. Washed his dishes. Went to bed on time. Sugiyama had always done everything asked of him, and then had walked bleating to his own slaughter when it was time.

“Miya.”

Miya blinked. Sakusa was surveying him, a detached kind of concern in his black eyes.

“Yeah?”

“Are you all right?”

Miya rubbed his eyes. He could feel a tension headache coming on.

“Fine. My roommate got bit yesterday. Ended up havin’ to–”

“Well, get it out of your head. If you’re distracted, you’re going to get us both killed on a simple assignment.”

Miya was actually too furious to speak.

Sakusa went on as though he hadn’t noticed. “Look, Miya. Do you still have your dose of antidote? From last month’s ration?”

“No. You?”

Sakusa hesitated, and Miya had interrogated enough suspects to recognize someone contemplating a lie. But at the last, Sakusa seemed to reconsider and tell Miya the truth.

“Yes. I still have my dose,” he said, “But I want to let you know upfront that I can’t spare it for you. Unfortunately, if you get bitten, you’re on your own.”

“Fantastic.”

“If you don’t mind my asking, Miya, what happened to your antidote ration?”

Miya’s fingers tightened on the steering wheel. 

“Gave it to my last partner. Didn’t do any good. Two minutes, four goddamn seconds.”

“That’s why you’ve got to watch the time,” said Sakusa, and Miya all but heard the three words he left off the end: _you careless buffoon._

Miya glared at him.

“What are ya, a year out of Academy?”

“Almost two years. Long enough to know you’re in the wrong line of work if you can’t cope with death.”

“ _You’re_ in the wrong line of work, if ya can’t care about people,” snarled Miya.

Sakusa shrugged.

“I’m still alive, aren’t I?”

Yes– Sakusa was alive, and Miya’s old partner was dead. His vision blurred. He couldn’t save anyone these days, it seemed. He blinked the tears away impatiently, and fixed his eyes on the road again.

“Christ, Sakusa. Are ya made of stone?”

For the first time, Sakusa seemed startled.

“I’m sorry,” he said softly, and left Miya alone for the rest of the ride.

According to the floor plans, Okada’s office was on the fourth floor near the pediatric inpatient wing, most directly accessible by entering through the second window on the south side of the building and crossing through the atrium. The windows had all been crudely reinforced early in the outbreak. While Miya sawed methodically through the screw heads holding the bars in place, Sakusa sat on the window ledge, cleaning nonexistent residue from his pistols. 

“Got a girlfriend?” asked Miya.

Sakusa looked up and raised his eyebrows. 

“No. Never.”

The bolt came free and the last bar sprang away from the window. Miya looked back at Sakusa, and then looked away.

“Just ask,” said Sakusa.

“Are ya gay?”

“Yes.”

Not volunteered, but told readily enough. Miya slid his fingers over the grimy beading and gave the pane an experimental shake. It didn’t budge. He then selected a flathead screwdriver and began working it under the jamb. Sakusa had finished cleaning his guns. He watched Miya work, his own hands in his pockets.

“What about you? I assume you like women?”

“Yeah. But I’m not too picky.”

 _How canine_ , he imagined Sakusa thinking. 

The window at last gave way. They stood aside and let it fall the four stories to shatter on the pavement below. Miya pressed his radio talk button.

“We’re in.”

“Copy that,” came Kita’s voice, “I’ll send Fire back around to pick you up. Check in when you get to Okada’s office.”

They lingered outside for a moment longer.

“Remember to look around all corners,” said Sakusa, “No blind spots. If we run into trouble, we forget the data and get out.”

“Yeah.”

The pediatric inpatient wing reminded Miya of a deserted carnival ground. A statue of Mickey Mouse loomed enormous and sinister in the morning light filtering through the filthy windows. A wayfinding sign, once brightly colored and fashioned to look like a cartoon signpost, had been bent in half, and now jutted, bloodstained and illegible, in their path. 

Sakusa’s pistol clicked as he slid a magazine in. The sound echoed in the uneasy silence. He was the only S.P.I.K.E. agent known to use a firearm in the neutralization of Infected. Miya’s carbon-reinforced alloy blade was standard issue. 

Early in the pandemic, the Department of Defense had been ordered to transfer all excess military equipment to law enforcement agencies, a move now widely considered to be a catastrophic mistake. Apparently no one had ever anticipated that high explosives and assault weapons in the chaos of an Infected raid would end up killing a dozen humans before neutralizing a single Infected, which would keep coming for you with its arms missing and its jaw shot off and bullet holes riddling its chest unless you could land a perfect shot through the brainstem. Shortly after that disaster, S.P.I.K.E. and similar independent agencies had arisen, specially trained to combat the growing masses of the undead. They had learned quickly that a big hunting knife was your best bet against the Infected.

That is, it was your best bet if you were anyone other than Kiyoomi Sakusa.

Because supposedly, what Sakusa could do with his Smith and Wesson M&P 45 wasn’t combat– it was surgery.

The door to Okada’s office hung in splinters off its hinges. The interior lay in shreds: papers spilling out of files strewn across the floor, bookshelves broken and leaning, and gouges in the wall that looked like they’d been left by overgrown human fingernails. Okada himself was dead at his desk. There was a tourniquet still snug around his pale arm, and an empty syringe in front of him. He looked peaceful. The Infected left the dead alone. 

Sakusa kept watch in the doorway while Miya swam through the debris, opening and shutting dented drawers looking for the hard drive.

“Hurry up,” hissed Sakusa.

At last, Miya opened a cabinet to find a locked metal safe, which looked as though it had until recently been in regular use. He pressed a button on the interface.

“State your name,” said a computerized voice.

Miya cursed. Voice recognition.

“Okada couldn’t’ve opened this thing before offin’ himself?”

“It’s to keep the Infected out,” Sakusa snapped at him, in a tone that seemed to add, _and morons, apparently._

“Got any ideas, then, genius?”

“I don’t know. Look around for a recording.”

Miya started searching the office once more, and Sakusa spared a few seconds to glance around as well. His eyes alighted on a phone number written on the pocked wall in permanent marker.

“Miya.”

Miya looked up, and understood.

He dug his cell out of his satchel, put it on speaker, and dialed the number. It went to voicemail right away, and through the tiny speaker came the deep, intelligent voice saying, “Hello, you’ve reached Kai Okada…”

The safe sprang open. Inside was a single sleek silver hard drive, along with a photograph. Miya slid the hard drive into his satchel. Then he picked up the photograph and stared at it, trying to make sense of what he saw. 

“Sakusa,” he said, “this is…”

“There isn’t time,” said Sakusa, “Come on. Radio headquarters and let’s get out of here.”

Obediently, Miya pressed the button.

“We’ve got the drive.”

“Copy. Fire’s waiting for you outside.”

Miya snagged Okada’s hospital ID and pinned it to his own belt. They left the office door open and started back down the hall.

That's when Miya noticed it– a smell uncannily similar to freshly baked bread.

The sharpshooter’s eyes were the first to make out the mass of blurred forms in the shadows. Before Miya could even articulate a warning, Sakusa had drawn his pistol and fired three times over Miya’s shoulder. Each shot exploded past Miya’s ear, and left a violent ringing in its wake. Two Infected now lay on the ground ten feet away, twitching.

For a second, Miya thought Sakusa had wasted a bullet. And then the Mickey Mouse statue at the end of the hall teetered, its girders shot through, and crashed through the floor, crudely barricading the passage through which the Infected had come.

Then the ground started to tremble– not dramatically, but just a little, like a massive ocean wave was rising in the distance. They ran back along the rows of offices. Miya looked over his shoulder to see the Infected piling onto the barricade, and then climbing over their fellows to get over. The smell of bread grew overpowering. Their moans of hunger filled the halls, and attracted even more of them; Infected began to emerge from under desks, from inside cabinets, from behind office doors. 

“Sakusa,” Miya yelled over the growing din, “the stairwell–”

An Infected dropped unexpectedly from a light fixture overhead. Miya’s knife flashed, and the creature's head rolled across Sakusa’s path, almost tripping him. They turned the corner into the inpatient ward.

And then Miya’s blood ran cold.

They were waiting in a huddled crowd at the nursing station, some of them in tattered scrubs, and others, smaller, in fading pediatric hospital gowns and plastic wristbands. This entire ward must have turned all at once. One of them had a sticker on the front of its gown, with a picture of a bear on it, that read “I’m Bear-y Fond of My Nurse.”

Sakusa seemed frozen where he stood. Behind them, the moans and thudding footsteps of the Infected from the atrium grew louder. Miya grabbed his arm and shook him.

“Come on!”

There was a metal door marked EXIT at the end of the ward. They'd have to get through the dead nurses to reach it.

The Infected rushed them in an ungainly swarm. A single arc of Miya’s knife felled one easily, and half-severed the neck of another. Sakusa’s shots rang out in an even clip, and after every shot, one of the creatures dropped to the floor. Clockwork.

Sakusa reloaded after he'd emptied the magazine. But as he was pushing another magazine into the chamber, in that very split second when he was defenseless, an Infected leapt out from the medical supply right in front of him.

Miya barely got there in time. His body shielded Sakusa’s as the thing came upon him. Its cold flesh pressed against his neck. He thrust blindly with the knife; felt bone splintering in its path, but it was no use– the Infected’s gray teeth sank deep into his shoulder…

The pistol shot rang out, and the Infected dropped. 

Miya’s mind was blank with shock. Warm blood was trickling down his sleeve. He let Sakusa half-drag him to the stairwell door, fumble at his waist for Dr. Okada’s ID badge, and thrust it desperately again and again across the reader until the bolt clunked open, and then threw Miya into the stairwell before he fired one last shot into the advancing horde, and slammed the door closed behind them.

Miraculously, a single fluorescent light flickered in the stairwell. Sakusa helped Miya to the dirty concrete floor and yanked his sleeve up over his shoulder. Blood oozed from the puncture wound. Miya’s breath came in ragged gasps. 

“How long?” demanded Sakusa.

Weakly, Miya held up his wrist to show Sakusa the screen.

Yellow numbers read: 1:31.

Without another instant’s hesitation, Sakusa withdrew the syringe of antidote from his satchel and emptied it into Miya’s arm.

Miya cried out first in surprise, and then in agony. The rigors hit him almost at once as the antidote coursed through his veins. His vision exploded in starry white. He almost wondered if he hallucinated Sakusa putting his arms around him then, holding him, whispering, “It’s okay. It’ll be over soon. You’re going to be okay.”

Miya’s eyes opened to the sound of Sakusa’s voice, talking to somebody else. His shoulder throbbed. When he reached over to touch it, he realized it had been cleaned and neatly bandaged while he’d been out. Sakusa was pacing the narrow landing, clutching his radio. Unaware of Miya watching, he pressed the button on his radio again.

“Sakusa to headquarters. We’ve been attacked. Repeat, we’ve been attacked, and we’re trapped. Kita, do you copy?”

A garbled chatter came over the wire and then went silent again. Sakusa cursed, slid the radio back onto his belt, and ran his fingers impatiently through his hair. He stopped when he noticed Miya’s gaze.

“We’re trapped, huh?” said Miya, and trembled. His temples throbbed. It felt like the worst flu of his life. 

“Yes,” said Sakusa, and nodded to the wall. A rusted sign read: NO ROOF ACCESS. This set of stairs went no higher.

“Ah. And down below?”

“The lower floors are locked down, remember?”

“Thanks,” said Miya.

Sakusa wheeled to stare at him.

“What?”

“The antidote. You said ya weren’t gonna waste it on me. And then ya did.”

“Oh. That.”

Sakusa came over and sat down on the ground beside Miya, drawing his knees up to his chest. He exhaled softly, staring deep into the dim, dusty space.

“Why’d you save me?” Sakusa asked, “Back there, when I was reloading?”

Miya grunted.

“Instinct, I guess.”

And then Sakusa looked relieved, as though Miya had just confirmed a deeply held suspicion of his. This reaction seemed odd to Miya, and then he remembered the other thing Sakusa had done that struck him as unexpected: he’d comforted him, after injecting the antidote in his arm. As though he’d known what would happen. As though he knew what it would be like. Then there was the photograph that had been in the safe along with the hard drive–

And Miya thought he could begin to see what was going on.

“Sakusa,” he said, “you’ve taken antidote before, haven’t you?”

Sakusa turned to face Miya, his expression difficult to read behind the mask. 

“Yes,” he said, “Three years ago. In this hospital. In this ward, in fact.”

There were heavy thuds from the other side of the bolted metal door. The Infected were pounding at it on the other side, throwing their bony shoulders against the metal. Miya shivered again, and once more, Sakusa reached out to steady him. His touch was more gentle than Miya could have imagined.

Then he gave Miya a long look, pausing for a moment more, as though deciding where in the story he should begin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!  
> Twitter - @KMyuutsu


	2. Chapter 2

“I was born with a rare genetic condition,” Sakusa said, “I’m missing a certain plasma protein– an enzyme involved in the immune response. As a result, I’ve been susceptible to sicknesses my entire life."

"Jesus," said Miya. The mask. The obsession with cleanliness. It made sense now. 

"I was in and out of this hospital a lot when I was a kid. I hated it. When I went off to University, I thought I was finally free. I stayed out late once, in my first year, and developed a fever the next day. I was transferred to Shrine General, because they knew me here. They put me in an isolation ward and started IV antibiotics. My dad came to visit with my new stepmom. When the Infected swarmed the ward, he just grabbed her and ran. They broke through the glass of my room in just a few minutes. By the time the S.P.I.K.E. agent was able to neutralize them, my BiteTrak was flashing red. 2:15. But as I lay there, covered in blood, certain I was going to die, the agent injected the antidote straight into my IV. And somehow, I lived. To this day, I’m the only person who’s ever survived past the two minute mark before getting antidote. There were a few theories floating around, why it worked. Most people think it’s because I had the IV, so the dose could enter my bloodstream more quickly. But no one’s really sure.”

Miya nodded. 

“Was it Dr. Okada who took care of you?”

Sakusa glanced over, surprised. 

“Yes. How did you know?”

Miya reached into his satchel and recovered the bent photograph. Sakusa took it, and looked over the face of his younger self, his expression still inscrutable. And then he made a strange, small sound and handed it back to Miya, who put it carefully away. A second later, he realized Sakusa was crying.

“Kai Okada was kind to me,” he said, “He came to my room at the end of the day, every day, just to talk to me. I think he felt sorry for me: a kid so broken his blood didn’t even work right, whose own father had left him behind. I know it was a hard choice my dad had to make. But in the end, he didn’t choose me. I learned then that I’d never be anyone’s first choice. After I was discharged, I left school. I learned how to shoot so I could kill from a safe distance away. Miya, I don’t know how many years I have in me. I don’t know if this thing I’ve got is going to kill me in the end. But I told myself I’d rather die facing death, than waiting for it to finally come get me.”

Miya grinned sadly.

“We’re all goin’ that way eventually,” he said, “Might even be today. The two of us, together. How about that? I’m glad ya told me those things. Make me feel like I finally know ya.”

Sakusa wiped his eyes absently on his shoulder.

“I wish, just once, I knew what it was like to be ordinary,” he burst out, “An ordinary boyfriend. Ordinary love, ordinary heartbreak. That’s all I ever used to wish for. But I’ve had to hide for so long that I just never– I mean–”

And he looked very young, then, this smart, sad kid-turned-soldier, confronting his own death, as he had done since the day he was born, before he’d ever had a chance to live.

“Somebody should see ya, for what ya are,” said Miya, “Somebody oughta love ya, Kiyoomi Sakusa.”

Sakusa turned once more to face Miya. His fingers, uncharacteristically graceless and uncertain, rose to his face. Then he lifted the mask and let it fall around his neck. He had nice features, elegant and delicate. Quickly, almost as though he only wanted to know what might happen, he took Miya’s face in his hands and pecked him on the lips. Then his dark, lost eyes searched Miya’s face for his reaction.

Miya gathered Sakusa’s slender body in his arms, his slight, compact muscles, his angular shoulder blades, and pulled him in close. He kissed him– not like it was the end of the world, not like it was the last chance he’d ever have, but rather, languidly, patiently, like they had all the time they could ever want.

Sakusa returned his kisses clumsily, at first, but soon began hungrily to mimic the movements of Miya’s lips. He began to breathe rapidly, in short, funny bursts. And then he broke away, panting, his hand over his pumping heart. He curled up into Miya’s chest, though Sakusa was taller, and Miya held him fast for a long time, until he was right again.

“What is it that you fight for, Miya?” Sakusa asked, "Why are you doing all this? You know it's a losing battle."

Miya sighed, letting him intertwine their fingers together.

“‘Cause it’s what I’m supposed to do, I guess. My dad was a cop. A good one. My twin brother’s in the Coast Guard. The way I figure, I’d be doin’ about the same thing, pandemic or not. There’s always people need protectin’. If not from one thing, then from somethin’ else.” 

They were quiet for a moment.

Then Miya asked, “Sakusa, do you trust Dr. Okada?”

Sakusa’s eyes gleamed in the darkness.

“I trust him. Why?"

"This cure he says he's found. Think it's for real?"

"Yes. If Dr. Okada says he’s found a cure, then he has. I’m sure of it."

“Okay," said Miya, "If you trust him, then I trust him too. Sakusa, we’re not gonna die here. Out there, maybe. Fightin’ to get this thing out to the world. But not here, not huddled up in a stairwell just waitin’.”

Sakusa sat up straighter, listening intently now. 

“Think, Sakusa,” Miya went on, “You’ve been here before. Is there another way out? Somethin’ not in the floor plans?”

Sakusa stood. He began to pace again, his brow furrowed in concentration. Then he stopped, in a flash of realization. 

“I think so,” he said, “The jungle gym in B ward. The doors were–” he closed his eyes, trying to remember. “–steel framed, with glass panels. Continuous hinge. If the Infected haven’t gotten to it yet, there’s a rope bridge that goes to the top floor– it was pretty famous once upon a time. I think the floor was empty around the time the hospital locked down.”

“We can radio for Aerial,” said Miya, "if we can just make it up there.”

He struggled to rise. Sakusa reached down to help him.

“How’s your shoulder?”

“I'll live.”

“I’m a little low on rounds.”

“How much d’ya have left?”

“Three magazines’ worth. Eight rounds each, plus the two in the chamber.”

Twenty-six bullets. Miya had counted at least sixty Infected between the ward and the atrium. It just needed to last the thirty yards to the next ward.

“Okay,” said Miya, “We gotta make do. Don’t shoot till ya see the grays of their eyes, I guess. If ya run out, holler. I’ll cover ya.”

“Roger.”

They stood before the stairwell door, Miya with his knife drawn, and Sakusa with his pistol raised. 

“Ready?”

“Ready.”

But at the last second, Sakusa hesitated.

“Give me your satchel,” he said.

“What?”

“The hard drive,” said Sakusa, “I want to be the one to guard it. For Dr. Okada.”

Miya didn't question it. He switched satchels with Sakusa, who put his on and tugged the straps snug around his own shoulders. Then he raised his pistol again.

“Stand back. And watch your eyes.”

Sakusa aimed carefully for the topmost hinge of the door, then squeezed the trigger. The hinge burst, and the spent round skittered across the floor. The heavy aluminum door began to rock more violently with the force of the Infected horde behind it. 

“One more,” said Miya. Beads of sweat ran down his neck. 

Sakusa fired again. The middle hinge flew off into the wall. The door teetered.

In the second it took for the Infected to break through, Sakusa reloaded. Then the door fell forward, neatly separated from the jamb, and four Infected immediately choked the doorway. Sakusa fired rapidly, emptying half of the first magazine– enough time for Miya to neutralize three more Infected. Another shot whizzed past his ear and straight through the windpipe of an Infected whose name tag read, “X-ray Technician.” 

The way was clear. 

They stumbled over the bodies and ran back through the ward, Sakusa staying just behind Miya, saving his ammunition when he could, but turning around to neutralize any Infected that came close enough for its dead eyeballs to become visible. 

“This way,” said Sakusa, “Come on.” 

They passed the elevators toward the signs reading, “Ward B - Observation.” More Infected emerged from up ahead. Nurses, doctors, physical therapists, social workers. An entire ensemble of essential workers dressed in rags as though for a staff production of _Lés Miserables._ When they got close enough, Sakusa once more fired several shots in quick succession to clear the path before them.

“How many left?” yelled Miya, bringing down an Infected dressed in a blood-spattered housekeeping uniform. 

Sakusa jammed the second magazine into the chamber.

“Sixteen.”

They rounded the corner of a nursing station identical to the first, still adorned in pink Valentine’s Day decorations from a year prior that no one had bothered taking down. Sakusa glanced around at the walls of the next hallway. They had been painted to look like a tropical rainforest.

“We’re getting close. It’s somewhere here, I know it.”

And then they saw it up ahead, past a small waiting room: a set of locked doors of steel and glass, a bronze plaque on the wall just outside.

KETTERING MEMORIAL PLAY AREA

Sakusa’s eyes flashed in bitter recognition as they darted over the mismatched toys, the tiny ball pit, the faded red slide. And sure enough, just as he remembered, there was the wood-and-rope bridge, fraying but intact, stretching lazily past the landing high over the ruins of the hospital lobby below, and curving up into the distance, thus far untouched by the hands of the Infected.

“Cover me,” yelled Miya. Sakusa fired a shot through the middle panel of the glass doors, and then hurried forward. Miya lifted one of the heavy waiting room armchairs. Pain flared in his injured shoulder. He ignored it and hurled the chair at the panel Sakusa had fired through. The glass panel cracked but did not fall away.

Sakusa fired two rounds at the approaching Infected. The first found its mark, but at the last millisecond, the second Infected, by pure luck, happened to duck in its staggering gait. Rather than ripping cleanly through the brainstem, Sakusa's bullet lodged slightly higher, at the back of its skull.

Barely deterred, the thing continued lumbering toward them.

“Miya–” Sakusa cried, but the thing was upon them; it lunged for Miya, who managed to swing the chair in front of him, but now he was pinned to the broken glass, grunting in pain, his bad shoulder bleeding anew. He fought to breathe as the thing snapped its jaws, pushing the chair against his trapped ribcage.

“Behind you,” Miya choked out in a strangled whisper. Sakusa turned just in time to fire six more shots into the oncoming horde, emptying the second magazine. 

At last, Miya twisted free and threw the Infected to the ground. He retrieved his hunting knife from his back and swiftly parted the thing from its head before lifting the chair once more and slamming it against the glass.

This time, the panel splintered, and the shimmering shards rained down on him, opening up a thousand little canyons in his skin. His eyes burned as a mixture of blood and sweat streamed into them. When Sakusa turned around again, his face paled in horror.

“Miya–” 

“They’re only scratches. Go on. You first.”

“No. You.”

“God’s sake.”

Rather than argue, Miya clambered through the hole. A jutting shard gouged his leg as he dropped through the hole, but he’d made it. He reached behind him to help Sakusa through. But the Infected got to Sakusa first. This one was so heavily decayed that its nose was no more than a hole in its disintegrating face. It closed its rotting fingers around the satchel on Sakusa’s back.

The satchel tore away and fell to the ground.

The Infected abandoned it at once, grasping once more for Sakusa.

Sakusa let go of Miya.

“Leave it!” screamed Miya, “Sakusa, leave the satchel! Forget the drive, let’s go!”

Sakusa seemed not to hear him. His eyes were fixed on the satchel.

Inside it was Dr. Okada’s legacy. Inside it was his chance to end the pandemic, once and for all; his chance to earn the right to be something other than the broken boy whose father had left him to the Infected. To go after it would mean death, but for Sakusa it was too lovely a death to leave behind.

“I’m sorry, Miya.”

He dropped gracefully back through the broken glass. In a single, fluid movement he dove for the satchel on the floor and with his left hand threw it up to Miya. His right hand drew his pistol and fired, once, twice, then twice more. The Infected fell away. There was grim relief on his face as he rushed to join Miya on the other side.

He almost made it.

But when he was halfway through the glass, one of the severed heads bounced up from the floor, opened its jaws and sank its teeth deeply into Sakusa’s leg.

In the second before the head went limp and fell to the ground, it gazed up at Sakusa, the eyelids scraped away and the cheeks torn up in a grimacing smile, almost with a look of triumph. 

Miya took Sakusa by the arms and dragged him through. But it was too late. His bitten leg began to bleed. Behind him, four new Infected were already clawing at the hole in the glass, shoving each other to get through. Sakusa’s face was white, but resolute.

“Go, Miya. I’ve got four shots left. I can buy you some time.”

“No. No, Sakusa, come on–”

"Hurry up, you damned idiot–"

"Fuck you. Sakusa, don't leave me, just come with me, please–"

“I’ll be okay, Miya. I’ll save the last shot for myself. Go.”

But Miya wouldn't let go of him.

“Christ, I can’t do it, I can't do this again–”

“You have to.”

“Just over the bridge,” said Miya desperately, “Please, Sakusa, just come with me over the bridge. You’re not gonna turn that fast."

"Miya–"

"Come with me over the bridge. And I promise I’ll let you go.”

Sakusa didn't have a choice. He rose, limping, and leaned on Miya's shoulder. They ran.

Behind them, the glass cracked and tinkled to the floor as the Infected widened the hole and began to climb through. The bridge swayed under their weight. They made it to the middle before the first Infected lumbered onto the bridge after them. The bridge began terrifyingly to rock back and forth like a playground swing.

Sakusa aimed his pistol, but with pain and fatigue, and the motion of the bridge it took him two shots. The other Infected were close behind. Miya and Sakusa resumed sprinting across the bridge. The Infected were piling onto the bridge now. The ropes pulled taut. First they began to creak; then individual threads began to snap. They did not dare slow their pace. The right side of the bridge split apart just as Miya’s shoe hit solid ground. He caught Sakusa as he fell and pulled him to safety. Then he raised his knife high and severed the bridge behind him. 

The bridge fell away, and the last of the Infected with it. Their bodies splattered on the tile of the hospital lobby six stories below. But Miya never noticed. He grabbed Sakusa’s right wrist and held up the BiteTrak.

“It’s no use,” said Sakusa, “You know it’s no use. There’s no antidote left.”

The suffering tore through Miya’s body like a storm through a sinking ship. In his pain, in his exhausted defeat, he scarcely knew what words were coming out of his mouth.

“I chose you," he sobbed, "Damn it, Sakusa, I chose you.”

But Sakusa’s smile was peaceful, and free of bitterness.

“I know.”

“Sakusa–”

“Hey,” said Sakusa with a soft laugh, “How about the view from up here? We made it, didn’t we?”

They looked back across the back over to the pediatric wing. The Infected had emerged onto the landing, but with the prey so far away now, they had turned around to wander back into the shadows. From up here, they looked almost human, dressed as they were for their various occupations. Just another ordinary day of completing paperwork, gossiping with their coworkers, and punching out their timecards as they walked out the door. 

“Yeah. Guess we did.”

Sakusa smiled again, a smile that took a little more courage than the last. 

“Well, we’re over the bridge, Miya,” he said, “Stay with me a bit longer, if you want. But leave me that pistol, won’t you? I kept my end of the promise, after all.”

Miya reached beside him and picked up the M&P 45 from where it lay on the ground, the last bullet nestled safely in the chamber. He raised it as though to hand it to Sakusa. 

But as Sakusa reached for it, Miya’s smiled hardened.

“Sorry about this, partner,” he said, and slammed the grip against Sakusa’s temple.

Sakusa went limp, and Miya caught him just before he hit the ground.

He retrieved two autoinjector needles from his satchel, both filled with the same sedative he had used on Sugiyama. He quickly gave Sakusa both shots in quick succession, and threw the empty syringes away. Sakusa’s breathing slowed. 

Then Miya pressed his radio talk button. 

“This is Agent Miya. Do ya copy?”

Kita’s voice was hoarse with relief and worry.

“Miya– Agent Miya, where are you? What happened?”

“Infected attack,” he said, “A whole horde of ‘em, and they had us cornered. Long story. Kita, I need ya to send Aerial to the roof. And tell 'em to bring a straightjacket.”

“A straightjacket?”

“Just trust me, okay?”

On the other end of the line, Miya could hear Kita shouting instructions over a jumble of different channels. He waited patiently, brushing Sakusa’s hair out of his pale face. 

“Agent Miya?”

“Copy.”

“Aerial is on the way. Agent Sakusa, is he–”

“He’s with me. Don’t worry. I’ll see ya soon, Kita.”

“Copy that.”

With that, Miya took a roll of duct tape from his satchel, and wrapped Sakusa’s bitten leg in it so it was watertight. Then he lifted Sakusa’s limp form in his arms. It wasn’t an easy task. Sakusa was tall, his frame awkward and heavy despite its deceptive slimness. He staggered his way to the stairs, half-dragging, half-carrying Sakusa, his shoulder aching, and the cuts on his face and arms smarting and sticky with congealing blood. 

“Almost there,” he said to his unconscious partner, “Just a little longer.”

He started up the stairs. He had to stop every few steps to catch his breath, and to gather Sakusa up again. It seemed like they spent an age in that stairwell, slowly succumbing to gravity and exhaustion. When at last, Miya flung the door open, the icy wind hit his face like a blast of salvation. 

It was snowing.

Miya's vision filled with a blinding light. From just beyond he heard the roar of the helicopter blades. And now the hands of his comrades, human hands, were reaching for them, helping them to safety.

“The straightjacket,” Miya slurred, delirious, “Do ya have it?”

They did.

“Good. It’s for Agent Sakusa. He’s been bitten.”

There were cries of confusion and fear.

“Shit. He’s Infected?”

Miya’s eyelids were heavy. His sight was graying around the edges. But he had to stay awake. He had to keep Sakusa safe.

“No,” he said, “No, he’s not–"

Someone tried to lift him to bring him to the helicopter. He shook them off, struggling to get the last few words out before the darkness took him.

"He’s not Infected. He’s the cure.”

Three weeks later, Sakusa awoke, and found himself in a hospital.

It didn’t seem like Shrine General, though. The lights were on. And everything was clean. His mouth felt pleasantly minty. Someone had just brushed his teeth for him. He blinked, and pushed himself up on the flimsy hospital pillow. He looked around the room, and his eyes landed on Atsumu Miya's grinning face.

“Miya?”

And then everything came flooding back to him at once: the Infected in pediatric hospital gowns; the stairwell, the glass, the bridge, the severed head of the Infected sinking its teeth into the back of his leg…”

“Miya– oh God– Miya–”

Miya got up at once and sat down beside him on his narrow bed. He laid his hand on Sakusa until the other stopped shaking. 

“It’s okay, Sakusa. You’re still alive, right? Just like the first time. So, it’s okay. Trust me.”

Hearing Miya’s words, Sakusa calmed slightly.

“Yeah, I guess I am. How?”

“Are ya hungry, Sakusa? Are ya feelin’ all right? If ya wanna order dinner, ya gotta do it before five, ‘cause the kitchen closes, so–”

“Miya,” Sakusa almost yelled, “Tell me what the hell is going on.”

Miya sighed. He was hungry, even though Sakusa wasn’t. But at his partner’s request, he ignored the sounds of his stomach and explained what had happened over the last three weeks. And Sakusa listened in bewildered fascination, still half-convinced he was dead after all, and that what was happening now was nothing more than the nonsensical firing of neurons, trying to make sense of things even at the very end.

The paramedics had placed Sakusa in the straightjacket at Miya’s request before lifting him into the helicopter. They’d been skeptical, but Miya, still fighting to stay awake, kept on swearing that the data on Dr. Okada’s hard drive would confirm what he knew already: that because of the enzyme missing from Sakusa’s blood, the parasite was unable to survive in his body.

Within a few minutes, Sakusa had started to convulse. Everyone aboard had been utterly terrified– but after the seizures, the rhythm on Sakusa’s heart monitor had not assumed a terminal arrhythmia and flatlined, but instead, had resumed a regular sinus rhythm that was a little fast, but otherwise completely normal. 

They kept Sakusa in restraints for three days longer, just to be sure– and meanwhile, the researchers at the NIH had looked through Dr. Okada’s data, and had indeed found that he’d managed to produce Sakusa’s immunity in knockout mice. The findings were uploaded as preprints, and now a dozen biotechnology firms around the world, large and small, were racing toward a medication targeting the enzyme, hoping to be the first to stop the pandemic that had raged on for three years.

But well before that, multiple peripheral smears of Sakusa’s blood had come up without a trace of the parasite, and an MRI had demonstrated that his midbrain had been absolutely unaffected. Kiyoomi Sakusa was immune to _C._ _thralli_ – as he had been the first time, though no one but Dr. Okada had figured it out back then. And Sakusa was transferred to a small private hospital uptown for the remainder of his recovery.

When Miya finished, Sakusa smiled, and said, “You’ve come a long way. From calling _C_. _thralli_ a 'bug,' to co-discovering the cure.”

“And you’re still a smug son of a bitch,” retorted Miya. 

“What are you going to do now?” asked Sakusa.

Miya shrugged.

“Oh, ya know,” he said, “Same bullshit. Not for nothin’, but I’ve done an assload of paperwork for ya the last three weeks. A bunch more is waitin’ for ya after rehab, I promise ya.”

Sakusa bit back a laugh. There was a lightness in his heart that was new and wonderful. For the first time, he felt really happy to be alive.

“Miya,” he said, “Uh, I was wondering–”

But he was suddenly unsure of what to say. 

“Just ask.”

Sakusa blushed from his ears all the way down to his neck. Try as he might, he could not make the words fall out. Instead, he said, “I was wondering… what you thought of my guns.”

Miya raised his eyebrows.

“Yer guns?”

Sakusa didn’t think his face had ever felt this hot before.

“Uh, yeah… I’ve always found the M&P Shield series to be pretty reliable, but you saw me use them in the field and maybe… maybe you could tell me whether I should stick with them or– or look into different–”

Miya came over and kissed him, long and hungry and deep, a kiss so true and loving that there remained no doubt in Sakusa's mind that all of this was real. Sakusa looked back into his warm brown eyes, his heart so full he thought it might burst. 

“I think,” said Miya in a low voice, “maybe ya oughta hold onto those guns a while. I think they’re tricky and precise and dangerous and it makes ‘em goddamn beautiful. I think ya oughta take ‘em out every night and shine ‘em up and take care of ‘em cause they’re everythin’ ya ever wanted. I think you’d be bonkers to pick anythin’ else. And if one day those guns wanted to stop bein’ guns, and wanted to be just regular old pieces of metal instead, then ya wouldn’t love ‘em any less. Cause that’s not what made ya love ‘em in the end.”

He winked.

”That answer yer question, partner?”

Sakusa nodded. He threw his arms around Miya, and tucked his head into the space between his chin and his chest, the space that felt like it was meant for him.

The world was still in peril. The way forward was far from certain. But maybe, just maybe, he could believe that humanity wasn’t doomed. That there were things worth protecting, and that the right to be loved wasn’t something you had to earn. 

And that, even if he couldn’t believe that, he thought, he would always believe in Atsumu Miya.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading!!!
> 
> This fic was written as a Valentine's Day gift for miyainari (instagram/twitter ) - she asked for SakuAtsu Zombie Apocalypse, and the result is this story. I seriously had fun writing it and hope you enjoy... apologies for any typos! I will try to fix them all at some point haha!!!
> 
> Ps- I love getting comments ;) kudos/shares always appreciated  
> Edit - don't subscribe y'all this is complete!!
> 
> Find me on twitter - @KMyuutsu


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